Mau's arrival stirring great expectations

Bruce Mau defies easy categorization, which may be why he's one of the world's most celebrated designers.

Part graphic designer, part futurist, part economist and part activist, Mau made a splash in Chicago last year with a sprawling exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, "Massive Change."

The show offered an eye-popping glimpse at how new technologies are giving us new capacities to change how we live. When word leaked out in February that Mau was moving from Toronto to Chicago, some here hyperventilated that he might become the city's new Daniel Burnham.

In truth, it's too early to tell if the agent of "Massive Change" can live up to massive hype -- and whether he will fulfill the great expectations dangled in front of him by local design maven Stanley Tigerman: "In Chicago, you could do in 10 years what it would take you 40 years to do in Toronto."

Mau and his family just landed at their new house in north suburban Winnetka, and he only recently opened an office on the 12th floor of the Sullivan Center, the Louis Sullivan-designed, former Carson Pirie Scott & Co. store at 1 S. State St. From that platform, he'll teach at the School of the Art Institute, which offered him space for his Institute for Massive Change, and run a global business that provides branding, research and other services to clients ranging from movie mogul Barry Diller to the New York Jets football team. His Toronto office will remain open, but Mau clearly is tickled about setting up shop south of the border.

"There's a whole other world that opens up when you're part of the conversation in America," he says by cell phone, ticking off other reasons for his move to Chicago: the green agenda he shares with Mayor Richard M. Daley, the ability to pluck talent from Chicago's design schools or raid it from local firms, American clients' desire not to cross international borders in the post-9/11 era, and the dynamism of the American economy.

"When people see good ideas, they want to take action," he says. "You can buy shirts with the sleeves already rolled up here."

A quirky example, to be sure, but with his flowing beard and out-of-the-box thinking, the 47-year-old Mau long ago transcended the stereotype of the graphic designer as the mere shaper of corporate logos. He became a bona fide star in 1995 with the publication of the brick-size book, "Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large," co-authored with Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. Arranging projects by scale rather than by type or chronology, "S,M,L,XL" delivered witty, razor-sharp commentary on the splendors and misery of the contemporary city -- a classic illustration of Mau's idea that form doesn't simply package content. It is content.

Now he faces the challenge of duplicating that success in a famously tough-minded city. And already, there has been some tough going.

So far, for example, no commissions have come out of Mau's meetings with Metropolis 2020, the regional planning-minded civic group gearing up for the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago in 2009.

Yet from Tigerman to Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the city's design establishment has welcomed Mau -- in part, one can surmise, because his presence here reflects well on them and the city's design community. Says Tony Jones, president of the School of the Art Institute: "Any time with him is quality time."